Many-Sided Mute by Lisa Kokin

Sewn found photo sculpture.I am intrigued with other people photographic recording of their lives both for the generic quality they possess -- the family and social rituals, studio portraits, vacation shots -- and for the feeling of sadness and nostalgia that acquiring other people memories provokes in me. I feel somehow that it should be illegal to own them, yet since they are for sale it might as well be me who buys them.
Sometimes there are inscriptions on the back. Susie, 7 years old but more often they come to me stripped of all identity. I sit in my studio and speculate about the nature of the photographed peoples lives. I will, of course, never know the truth, so I feel it is my job to give them new lives and rescue them from the obscurity they would be headed for were it not for me, humble servant of the arts. I try to invent an altogether different identity for them but of course, in the final analysis these works are more about me than any of the hundreds of anonymous individuals who appear in my work.j

Lisa Kokin's work in artist's books, mixed media installation, assemblage and sculpture is about memory, history, and social commentary. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. A recipient of a California Arts Council Individual Artist's Fellowship and a Eureka Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation, Ms. Kokin's work is in numerous public and private collections.